This guide aims to teach players the following:

• How character and weapons stats mathematically work
  
• How weapon & Augment damage is calculated
  
• How Enchant, and Dual Wielding skills interact with weapons and Augments
  
• How an attack actually happens
  
• How to use this knowledge to pick the most fun and effective weapons for your crew
  

Horision’s Gate has highly adjustable difficulty. It can be beaten with nearly any weapons and no optimisation whatsoever. This is actually quite freeing, all weapons and abilities are viable, so you can use your favorites and still win. Ultimately the game allows you to make your own fun, and that's the most important aspect.

Play a crew of ghost pirates using only ruin abilities and bone equipment; become the lord of storms and use lightning wind and water to bring the storm yourself; set enemy ships ablaze with pyromancers welding lasers and fire.

This guide lets your pirate crew be the best versions of your fantasy, dealing the most damage they can with what they have. It also allows you to turn up your difficulty to make combat more interesting even when using a sub-optimal crew setup.

This is by no means an exhaustive guide, and the information is definitely not infallible. This is a huge game, and I am only including the info from skills I personally tested, not covering every skill exhaustively or making huge build suggestions.

Most information in this guide is obtained personally through observation, testing, and recording in game results (All testing done on Expert difficulty). Some weapon information was taken from the Wiki, and Wrax’s crafting guide. I have not cracked open the games code or looked at any internal files. Nothing here is 100% accurate. If I'm wrong about something and you have proof, please comment and I will update if I can find the time.

Anyone is free to use this info in any way they wish, and a simple chart of weapon + augment + enchant damage would probably be very appreciated if anyone has the time to throw one together.

Special thanks to Wrax's and wiki contributors for the weapon stats.

In this section we will detail each weapon type and the material of all craftable weapon types. When a weapon is created, it combines the properties of its weapon type and its material. We will list their damage and effects all in one spot allowing you to create any combination you like. In addition to these there are a large variety of unique and powerful weapons to discover yourself.

First we need to establish what an unmodified weapon does. We will borrow from Wrax’s crafting guide and use an Iron Sword as our baseline. All stats listed alter our baseline, so if a weapon is +1, it would deal 1 more damage than our Iron Sword. The Iron sword has the following properties:

• 5 Damage, 1 range, 1 handed, no added energy type

• Sword: Standard damage, 1 range
  
• Dagger: -2 damage, 1 range, +10% accuracy
  
• Hammer: +1 damage, 1 range, ignores 50% of Physical Defence, -15% accuracy
  
• Axe: +1 damage, 1 range, -4% accuracy
  
• Spear: -1 damage, attacks 2 squares in a straight line from the wielder hitting all targets in the attack area
  
• Flail: -1 damage, 1 range, can attack diagonally
  
• Whip: -1 damage, 3 range, can attack diagonally, deals 20% damage vs. Physical Defense, +3% accuracy
  
• Knuckle: -2 damage, 1 range, gains +1.5% Accuracy per Punch Skill
  
• Rapier: -1 damage, 1 range, +3 Physical Evade, +1% Accuracy per Sword Skill
  
• Greatsword: = +1 damage, attacks three squares in an arc in front the the wielder, hitting all targets in the attack area, 2 handed
  
• Bow: -2 damage, 3-4 square range, can attack diagonally, can shoot over obstacles, 2 handed
  
• Crossbow: +1 damage, 2-4 range, can attack diagonally, blocked by obstacles, requires a full action to reload after each shot

• Wood: -1
  
• Iron: Standard damage
  
• Steel: +1
  
• Mythril: +2
  
• Volskarn: Standard damage, 2 Augment slots
  
• Bone: +1, +1 Ruin skill
  
• Fang Weapon (Spidest Fang): +1, Poison on hit
  
• Coral (Rock Coral): +1, deals Water damage, Wet on hit
  
• Corpryst: +2, -4 Physical Evade
  
• Shock (Shock Parts): +2, deals Lighting damage, Stuns on hit
  
• Laser (Chunk of Laser): +3, deals Fire damage
  
• Whistling (Whistle Stone): +3, deals Wind damage
  
• Ironice: +4, deals Ice damage
  

Damage in Horision’s gate is complicated. To understand it we need to know what factors affect our damage, and how they affect it. The following is a list of all skills, attributes and equipment that directly affect damage, and how. This is a lot of information, so I recommend a quick skim, then refer back to it later as needed.

• Weapon Base Damage (Base Dam): Every weapon has a basic amount of damage it deals before anything else is added. This is the number deployed in tooltips when the weapon is moused over in game.
  
  
• Physical Attack (PA): Increases damage of physical attacks.
  --- Added 1/1 to the damage of physical attacks. (eg: +1 PA = +1 damage)
  
  
• Magical Attack (MA): Increases damage of magical attacks.
  --- Added 1/1 to the damage of magical attacks, including energy enchantments skills applied to weapons.
  --- Added in a roughly 3/1 ratio to the damage dealt by energy augments. (eg. 3 MA = +1 augment damage)*
  --- Does not increase the damage dealt by energy weapons.
  
  
• Physical Defense (PD): Reduces damage taken from physical attacks.
  --- Reduces physical damage 1/1
  --- Physical Defense is only applied to Primary Damage, not Secondary Effects
  
  
• Magical Defense (MD): Reduces damage taken from direct magical attacks.
  --- Reduces direct magical damage 1/1
  --- Does not reduce damage dealt by energy weapons or energy enchants
  --- Reduces damage taken from energy augments at roughly a 3/1 ratio. (eg. 3 MD = - 1 augment damage)*
  
  
• Weapon Skill (WS): Increases the damage of a single type of weapon.
  --- Increases dealt by the skills weapon type 1/1
  
  
• Energy Skill (ES): I will be using ES to refer to all energy themed skills in the game: Fire, Ice, Life, Lightning, Wind, and Ruin. ES influences the following:
  --- Added 1/1 to the damage of attacks of its energy type
  --- Increases damage done by energy weapons and energy enchants at a 2/1 ratio. (eg. a character with 2 Fire ES using a Fire energy weapon would deal an additional +1 damage.)
  --- Added in a roughly 3/1 ratio to the damage dealt by energy augments*
  --- Reduces associated energy damage from direct attacks and energy enchants by 1/1
  --- Reduces the damage taken from energy augments in a roughly 3/1 ratio*
  
  
• Energy Weapons: Weapons that deal energy damage because of their material. (eg Coral weapons deal water energy damage, Shock Part weapons deal lightning, ect)
  --- Damage increased 1/1 by Physical Attack
  --- Damage increased in a 2/1 ratio by the Energy Skill that matches the weapons energy type

*Augments are very complicated. See the Weapon Augments section for exact details.

Attacks are separated into two different stages, Primary Damage and Secondary Effects. In the Primary stage the game makes a single large damage calculation that deals the attack's “Primary” damage. This is the damage a weapon attack/skill deals with no secondary effects included. It starts with this calculation:

• Weapon Base Damage + Physical Attack + Weapon Skill + (½ of Energy Skill if using an Energy Weapon) = Damage total

The game then takes that damage total and applies the following effects if applicable*:

• Subtracts the the targets Physical Defense
  
• Alters the total by a percentage if using a skill that alters damage by percent, eg. Contact Shot (110%), Multishot (50%) to multiple targets

*I can't pin down what order these effects apply, see the known errors section for more detail.

It's easiest to understand if we use an example. Meet Basic Bob. Bob is using a Shock Sword and has the following stats:

• Base Dam (7), PA (3), MA (3) WS (2), ES 4

With this we can use the first formula to tell us exactly how much Primary damage Bob is going to do when he attacks.

• 7 + 3 + 2 + (½ 4 = 2) = 14 Damage
  --- If Bob attacks a target with 2 PD, then: 14 - 2 = 12
  --- If Bob uses a skill that does 150% damage then: 14 x 1.5 = 21

As said above, attacks have two stages: Primary Damage and Secondary Effects. In the Secondary Stage the game applies weapon status effects; such as Wet from Coral Weapons and Shock from Shock Part Weapons. It then does a separate damage calculation for each source of “Secondary” damage. This a list of all effects I tested:

• Weapon Status Effects
  
• Energy Enchant Skill Damage
  
• Damage Rider Skill Damage
  
• Dual Wielding Skill Damage
  
• Weapon Augment Damage

What makes secondary effects so powerful is that almost none of them are affected by Physical or Magical Defense. Being effectively unresisted makes secondary effects extremely deadly very quickly, and understanding them can make even low level characters very powerful.

To demonstrate this we are going to take Bob with his relatively low stats through each damage calculation, then we will put them all together at the end and have Bob make one giant attack.

A number of Weapons inflict status conditions when they hit the Target. Three weapon materials inflict a status when used to craft a weapon:

• Spidest Fang = Poison
  
• Rock Coral = Wet
  
• Shock Parts, = Shock

These status conditions trigger directly after Primary Damage, meaning they Trigger before all the other secondary damage effects.

The enchanter has 4 Energy Enchant abilities: Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Wind. They each grant the target + 1 ES and additional 7 damage of the Enchant skills type. This damage is calculated using this formula:

• Ability Damage (7) + Magical Attack + ½ attackers Energy Skill - Targets Energy Skill = Total Damage

Bob provides our example: Base Dam (7), PA (3), MA (3), WS (2), ES 4. If Bob gets a Lightning Enchant cast on him, he gains +1 ES, and then we can calculate his damage.

• 7 + 3 + (½ 5 = 2.5) = 12.5 Damage*

*See the Known Errors section for more information on rounding.

Damage Riders are any abilities that add a SET amount of damage to an attack determined entirely by ability. For example, the Ranger’s Apply Barb’s ability adds 6 damage to weapon attacks. There is no calculation, the ability adds the set damage and we are done! Easy.

There are two “Dual Wielding” abilities, the Brawler’s Thousand Fists and Blade’s Dual Strike. Both make an additional attack for 50% damage with the correct weapon in your off hand, and do not trigger secondary effects. This damage is calculated using the Primary Damage formula, but with one important exception, the skills do not consider Energy Weapon damage types to be a “Primary” effect. That means Energy Weapons do NOT deal their associated damage type, only regular, untyped damage like an iron sword. That means the formula looks like this:

• (Weapon Base Damage + Physical Attack + Weapon Skill) ÷ 2 = Total Damage

Back to Bob as our example. Let's say Bob has picked up a Shock dagger for his off hand, and taken the Dual Strike. That makes Bobs off hand dagger stats: Base Dam (5), PA (3), MA (3), WS (2), ES 4. Plugging that in we get:

• (5 + 3 + 2) ÷ 2 = 5 Damage

Bob’s Shock dagger doesn't deal its energy damage, meaning he misses out on the ½ ES bonus it would deal if used as a “Primary” weapon. This also prevents Bob from tigering any damage bonuses he would normally get with a Shock Dagger, such as the 50% boost from wet.

Weapon Augments are items that you can slot into weapons that provide the weapon additional damage or effects. Each weapon may only have a single Augment, with the exception of Volskarn weapons that can have two. Augments are weirdly complicated and have some unique properties.

• Augments always trigger LAST out of all secondary effects
  
• When used with AoE weapons/skills, augments only trigger once. For example, when using a spear, the augment’s damage only applies to the target you click on, even if the attack hits more than one target

Damage dealing Augments have an extremely complicated damage formula that took actual hours to test:

• {(6 + Magic Attack + Energy Skill) - (target Magic Defence + Target Energy Skill)} ÷ 3 rounded down = Total Damage

Yes I have the data for this, yes it's buck wild and took hours to figure out. To grossly simplify, augments scale at ⅓ the rate of other damage. All the stats that affect the augment are pooled together, then divided by 3 to produce the augments damage.

Augments deal 2 energy damage when equipped to a character with 0 MA and ES against a target with 0 MD and ES. This damage is still resisted at ⅓ rate if the target has points in MD and ES. This means the Augment effectively has a pool of points.

• 3 points = 1 Damage.
  
• The Augment starts with 6 points (2 damage)
  
• Each rank the attacker has in MA and ES adds 1 point, and each rank the defender has in MD and ES subtracts 1 point. The points are totalled, then divided by 3 and rounded down to determine how much damage the Augment does

Let's give Bob a lightning Augment and tackle this monster: Base Dam (7), PA (3), MA (3), WS (2), ES 4.

• Bob vs Target with 0 MD and 0 ES
  --- {(6 + 3 + 4 = 13) - (0 + 0) = 13} ÷ 3 = 4.3 rounded down = 4 Damage
  
• Bob vs Target with 1 MD and 1 ES
  --- {(6 + 3 + 4 = 13) - (1 + 1) = 11} ÷ 3 = 3.6 rounded down = 3 Damage
  
• Bob vs Target with 4 MD and 7 ES
  --- {(6 + 3 + 4 = 13) - (4 + 7) = 2} ÷ 3 = 0.6 rounded down = 0 Damage

To reiterate, Attacks are separated into two different stages, Primary Damage and Secondary Effects. When an attack is made, the game deals the attacks Primary Damage, then applies the Secondary effects in a set order of operations. You can actually see this order in the attack tooltip when targeting an attack, resolving in order from top to bottom.

• Primary Effects
  --- Damage is calculated using the primary damage formula, and adjusted by percentage skills and target PD. Total is dealt as damage
  
• Secondary Effects
  Weapon Status Effects are applied
  --- Energy Enchant damage is calculated and dealt
  --- Damage Rider abilities damage is dealt
  --- Dual Wielding damage is calculated and dealt
  --- Weapon Augment Damage is calculated and dealt

All together that gives us a formula to determine our total damage in most situations:

• Primary Damage + Energy Enchant + Damage Rider + Dual Wield + Augment = Total Damage

A fully equipped Bob can make an attack that uses every part of this formula. Here are Bobs total stats:

• Skills: PA (3), MA (3), WS (2), ES 4.
  
• Abilities: Lighting Enchant (+1 ES), Apply Barbs, Dual Strike
  
• Weapons & Augs: Main hand - Shock Sword [Lightning Augment] Base Dam (7), Off hand - Shock Dagger Base Dam (5)

With all abilities active, Bob makes an attack against a training dummy with 0 skills:

• 14.5 + 12.5 + 6 + 5 + 4 = 42 Damage!

Fantastic, great job Bob!

Now you know how each damage calculation works, and how to put it all together! You can use this knowledge to swap in any weapon in the game, with any stats and determine what works best for your pirate crew.

In this section will detail how to use our knowledge to create synergies in our crew and maximise our damage.

The easiest way to increase damage is to stack as many effects that deal the same type of damage on a single attack. Every each instance of a damage type, we get to add our stats is some way, effectively allowing us to double dip. For example, an Energy weapon only adds a bit of your ES once. An Energy weapon with an Energy Enchant and an Augment, all of the same kind, is applying your ES 3 times to different degrees.

Status effects such as Burned, Wet, and Chilled all increase energy damage by significant amounts. By using abilities, weapons, and Augments that inflict status effects you can set up your heavy hitters for massive attacks. Good use of status effects drastically increases your damage.

Theming your crew is not only fun, but often provides combat benefits. If you choose to focus on fire, have each character pick up at least 1 class that deals fire damage, or has skills that burn or buff fire damage. With every character's turn you set up your next character for success, burning or debuffing a target so another they hit even harder.

If you decide early what you want your crew to do, optimising and equipping them becomes simpler and cheaper. If you chose to focus on fire, equip characters with Laser weapons, fire Augments, and fire resistance armor. As you're exploring the world, buy every Trigger, weapon, or material that fits your theme.

This can turn even weak crew members hired only to man your cannons into helpful combatants. Use your main party members to apply buff and debuffs, and your weak crew to follow up with energy attacks with decent equipment to stack on the damage.

This is our final section, detailing probably the most powerful synergy in the game, and how to break it wide open.

Wet is a status effect that increases Ice and Lighting damage taken by 50%. When a Wet target is hit with Lighting the Wet status is removed, and when hit by Ice the target loses Wet and becomes Chilled. Chilled creatures take +30% Ice damage. Creatures can have more than one status effect, meaning a creature that is both Wet and Chilled takes a whopping +80% additional Ice damage. See where this is going?

Coral weapons apply Wet on hit, and can be bought for 120 Gold. Lightning and Ice Augments cost 150 each. When attacking, the weapon will deal its Primary damage, then apply Wet. Secondary Effects then deal damage, immediately triggering the 50% damage boost from Wet, quickly dealing high damage with very little investment.

With Wet in mind we have a few new formulas. This one is for Lightning:

• Primary Damage + Wet + Energy Enchant (+50% from Wet) + Damage Rider + Dual Wield + Augment = Total Damage

Here is Bobs attack with a Shock Sword, Lightning enchant and Augment:

• 13.5 + 12.5 + 4 = 30 Damage

Here is the same attack with a Coral Sword:

• 11 + (12.5 + 50% = 18.75) + 4 = 33.75 Damage

That's a significant damage increase, and Bob has fairly low stats. With higher stats this damage quickly climbs into the ridiculous, and lighting is not even the best option.

Using ice damage we can make the following setup. A Coral weapon, Ice Enchant and Ice Augment. The Weapon hits, makes the target Wet, then deals the Enchant damage boosted by 50% and Chilling the target so the augment then deals an additional +30% damage. This is the formula:

• Primary Damage + Wet + Ice Energy Enchant (+50% from Wet, removes Wet and Chills) + Damage Rider + Dual Wield + Ice Augment (+30% from Chilled) = Total Damage

With an entire crew of ice wielding pirates we can reliably Chill targets with every attack. Every subsequent attack then deals gains the Chilled damage bonus, and makes the target Wet renewing Chilled and dealing even more damage. This is our final formula for attacking a chilled target:

• Primary Damage + Wet + Ice Energy Enchant (+ 80% from Chilled & Wet) + Damage Rider + Dual Wield + Ice Augment (+30% from Chilled) = Total Damage

This is a wildly overpowered, extremely fun combination that costs very little money and time to pull off. You can even experiment more by throwing in some Ironice weapons and other tricks.

There are a number of errors I noticed, and I'm sure my testing is not fully accurate to the actual mechanics. Here is a list of known errors and things I could not figure out.

Rounding is all over the place for a number of reasons, and seems to go up or down differently for different stats in a way that's nearly impossible for me to pinpoint in a reasonable amount of time.

• As a whole, most damage numbers seem to round up, some even rounding up from 1.1 to 2. This is not always the case however, with things seeming to round down randomly very often.
  
• Most complications come from any abilities that alter damage by a %
  
• In my testing Augment damage always rounds down.

I don't know what order PD and % Damage abilities apply, and it seems to be inconsistent.

• A character dealing (16) damage with a normal attack against a target with 1 armor dealt the following damage with % based attack skills.
  --- 20%: (4) Damage. 20% of (16) = (3.2). 20% of (17) is (3.4) - (1) armor would be (2.4)
  --- 50%: (8) Damage. 50% of (16) = (8). 50% of (17) = (8.5) - (1) armor would be (7.5)
  --- 110% (18) Damage. 110% of (16) = (17.1). 110% of (17) = (18.7) - (1) armor would be (17.7)

This seems odd and inconsistent overall.

I absolutely did not test every ability and skill combination in the game. I have no idea what order other abilities that grant secondary effects to weapons would apply, or how they interact with the information I did research.

I did no testing with damage resistances and weaknesses and not gained from skills. This includes resistances like Shock armor lightning resistance, Augment resistances, and the Crubs 30% weakness to lightning.